


The streets were dark with something more than night

by calisthenicswithwords



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse, F/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2228730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calisthenicswithwords/pseuds/calisthenicswithwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It actually does sit on a hellmouth.” </p>
<p>A Post-Season 1 Apocalypse AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The streets were dark with something more than night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mollivanders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Veronica Mars is owned by Rob Thomas, The CW, etc.

**May 27, 2005.**

 

Veronica Mars is standing before the grave of Lilly Kane, surrounded by sky and stone. It is hot—the sort of hot that turns fresh air sour and gets lodged in lungs. The sun is beating down on Neptune and leaving it bruised. She is still bruised, a blush of black and blue curling around her cheek. Her hair hangs limp. A few sweaty strands are plastered to her skin like blond prison bars.

Mourners, black-clad and tearful, are perched to her right. An expensive looking woman reaches down to adjust a small boy's bowtie; he wriggles away from her touch. A priest recites bible verses and worn out platitudes, his arms flapping against the yellow sky like a conductor leading his orchestra in an elegy. A brightly lit tableau of tragedy.

Veronica takes a slip of paper from her pocket, twists it like she's hand-rolling a cigarette, and tucks it into Lilly's spy pen. She leans down and stabs the pen into the ground; it rises from the earth like a tiny plastic obelisk.

"Look on my corpse, ye Mighty, and despair," she says, to no one.

That's when it happens. An earthquake washes over the cemetery like a wave, pulses like heartbeat. The earth shifts beneath her feet and suddenly she is airborne; she clutches at sky as she tumbles to the ground. She is unaccountably afraid. The funeral goers break from their positions like a flock of geese fracturing at the sound of a pistol. A coyote howls in the distance. The sky suddenly looks flimsy, as though it was made of construction paper and hung with string.

She remembers it, later, as the exact moment the world didn't quite end.

 

**September 19, 2003.**

 

"Does it ever seem strange to you," asked Mr. Robbins, tugging at his elbow patches and bleating like a British foghorn, "that we can remember the past but not the future?"

"I remember my future," Lilly purred at Veronica. They sat in the back row of the classroom, their heads dipped low. "A mansion in Biarritz, a super rich husband, and a super hot lover for each day of the week. Plus a well-muscled pool boy for routine maintenance."

"Tell me more about this pool boy," whispered Veronica, giggling into the palm of her hand.

"Time only goes in one direction," Mr. Robbins continued, ignoring Veronica's muffled laughter, "and as time goes on, the universe evolves towards increasing disorder. You can turn an egg into an omelet, but you will never be able to turn an omelet into an egg. The process simply can't be reversed."

"Which came first?" muttered Lilly, her hands cupped close against Veronica's ear. "The chicken, the egg, or the perpetually celibate high school physics teacher? Can celibacy be reversed? Or is it irreversible, like omelets, and genital warts?" At this, Veronica blushed bright and rosy.

"So we must trudge on," sighed Mr. Robbins, "watching helplessly as disorder begets more disorder until—"

_Ring_ , cried the bell. The classroom jumped to its feet as one, scuttling out into the hallway before Mr. Robbins had time to set homework for the weekend.    

"Ain't disorder grand?" Lilly asked Mr. Robbins as she sauntered out of the room, a wad of bright pink bubblegum cracking between her lips.

 

**Neptune, CA: June 2005.**

 

It starts small. A Neptune-wide increase in paper cuts and lost keys. Parents curse at crying children. Kane Software secretaries call in sick. Major traffic accidents become a daily occurrence, and people abandon old cars on gridlocked Neptune streets. Pedestrians break legs tripping over fault lines, agoraphobic neighbors stock up on cans of imperishable food, and keggers on the beach end with a knife pointed at somebody's throat. The neon sign at the Neptune Grand malfunctions, and though expert technicians from Los Angeles are summoned, the sign persists in its error to the bitter ~~N~~ e ~~ptune~~ ~~Gra~~ nd. Dogs run away from home, a strange strain of flu leaves Neptune's children housebound, and a swarm of blister beetles attach themselves to the courthouse like an unwanted exoskeleton. The Neptune Police Department reports an upswing in violence. "I blame the weather," says Lamb to a cavalcade of glaring cameras.

 

**June 3, 2005.**

 

Veronica wakes to the sound of her phone. Caller ID: Anonymous. She presses accept with the resignation of a girl whose life is littered with half-broken boyfriends and prodigal mothers.

"Hello?"

"Veronica Mars. It's been soooo long." The voice on the other line is a comical mixture of society burr and Telenovela, all accordion r's and lisping sibilants. A prank call, it has to be.

Who is this?" asks Veronica. She presses a fist to her temple.

"Don't you know? Don't you _remember_?"

"What do you want?"

"To get drunk on champagne and tear off my clothes and dance in the ocean," says the voice. "What do you say, Veronica?"

"I don't usually go skinny dipping with strangers."

"You don't usually go skinny dipping with anyone." The voice drops, now barely above a murmur. "I have a secret. It's good one."

"What did you just say?" Veronica clutches at her phone with two hands.

"Lilly Kane in the library. With her teeth," whispers the voice. _Click_. The line goes dead. Veronica stands before her bedroom window, a stock-still silhouette and a shock of blonde hair aflame with moonlight. She does not go back to sleep that night.

 

Veronica is pouring herself a bowl of cereal when she hears the story on the news. Neptune boy, aged 14, chewed to death in his own home while his parents attend a charity gala. Theo Beauchamp. He is found reclining in a leather armchair in the family library, his skin half pulled from his skull. Another Neptune tragedy. The perky blonde news correspondent tugs her face into an expression of great emotional distress. Lips sloped down, eyes glistening. Veronica vomits into the kitchen sink, all bile and bitterness: her thin shoulders arched upwards like a wounded bird.

 

"Hey V?" asks Wallace, "are you gonna tell me why we're staring at a beat up payphone?" They are parked on the outskirts of Neptune, the windows of her LeBaron rolled all the way down. "I don't mind playing the Q to your Bond, but a man expects some excitement. Can't you at least threaten a ne'er-do-well with your Taser for me?"

_Snap_. Veronica takes another photo of the payphone. Black and rickety, with its paint peeling and FUCK NEPTUNE scrawled along the side in hastily sprayed red. "The Q to my Bond?" she queries, after another _snap_. "See, I always thought of you as the Bess to my Nancy Drew."

"Ice cold, Veronica Mars." An army of empty soda cans sprints along the adjacent sidewalk, rattling as they go past. "This friendship is a slippery slope, isn't it? One day we're staking out pay phones, the next we're going dress shopping and braiding each others hair."

"Don't tempt me with your talk of normal teenaged girl activities, Wallace. I've got this brand new nail polish—" Veronica burrows deep into her purse, and returns triumphant with a bottle of Chick Flick Cherry. She preens, head tilted and lashes aflutter. "I think it'd really complement the color of your eyes."

"You know what all the kids at school say about me?" He aims for serious but can't quite hide his smile.

"What?" she asks.

He pops his collar and snatches the nail polish. "You can't take the cool out of Wallace Fennel," he says, as he whips off the cap and grabs her right hand.

They stake out the location all day, waiting for the prank caller to show up. No one ever comes, and her phone never rings. Still, they wait. They have time.

 

**June 6, 2005.**

 

Keith is called in to help with the Theo Beauchamp case. He still walks with a cane and his skin is still dotted with burn marks, but his new fame has made him the go-to-guy for murdered minors. He returns from the police station looking grey and shaken.

"What happened to you?" asks Veronica when he slumps through the front door. "Did Lamb kick you in the teeth on your way out?" She stands behind the kitchen counter, knife raised, a row of half-chopped vegetables arranged before her.

"Honey, we need to talk," Keith says, as sinks into the sofa. "They called me in to consult because this case has a strange connection to…another case."

"You mean they didn't want you for your rakish good looks and keen investigative mind? The Neptune brain trust is at it again. But fear not! Someday soon all the clocks will stop and they'll have their moment of victory." An errant spider crawls across the kitchen counter. She whacks it with a spatula. _Got it_.

"Veronica, sit down." Keith looks her straight in the eye, unyielding, and she joins him on the sofa. "The DNA samples found at the scene of the crime—the hair, the fingerprints, everything—they're a match for Lilly."

Veronica goes white; a cool sweat coats the palms of her hands. "My Lilly?" she asks, the words caught in her lips.

"Yes," he says.

"How is that possible? Is this some kind of sick prank? I don't _understand_."

Keith pulls her to his chest, folds a kiss into a tuft of hair. "We'll fix this," he whispers, over and over again, until the words stop sounding like words and start quelling her tears.

 

**September 23, 2003.**

 

"Lilly?"

"I'm over here." The door at the far end of the girl's bathroom fluttered open with a kick. Lilly was crouched on the toilet, her chin resting on her knees and a lighter clasped in her hand. She flicked a flame with her thumb.

Whatcha doing?" asked Veronica, all faux-innocence and lip glossed smiles. _Time to defuse the bomb_.

"Oh, just contemplating the ever evolving disorder of the universe," said Lilly. _Flick_. "The way I see it, everything was going fine, order begetting order and all that jazz, until one day Adam tripped and fell into Eve's vagina. Shit's been spinning out of control ever since."

"You're ascribing an awful lot of power to male genitalia," said Veronica. "I'd hate to think that penises have the power to move mountains and fell skyscrapers."

"I always forget how virginal you are," said Lilly. _Flick_. "You'll see one some day soon. Make sure to find a nice, sturdy middle aged one. The teenaged ones tend to droop like melted popsicles at the first sign of female touch."

Veronica leaned on the wall of the bathroom stall, tugged on a lock of Lilly's hair. "What did Logan do?" she asked.

"Oh, the usual. He is a jealous asshat swimming in a sea of jealous asshats."

"Gunning for the gold medal in Olympic asshattery?"

"It is his most treasured and time honored skill." Lilly took a chunk of hair between her forefinger and her thumb, and singed the ends with a casual _flick_. The smell of burnt hair rose in the air, sharp and synesthetic. Veronica could taste it in her mouth.

"You know," said Veronica, "I didn't think you actually listened in physics class."

"I listen," said Lilly. She held the lighter up to her face. Which each flick, a new shadow danced along the curve of her cheek and a new flame glowed in her green eyes. She looked feral and a little bit frightening.

" _I_ _listen_ ," she said.

 

**June 20, 2005.**

 

Veronica and Logan sit in the Neptune High courtyard; she is picking at a salad, he is pretending to finish his trigonometry homework. The normally well-groomed Neptune High grass is overgrown, and rocks poke through the turf like a set of teeth.

"Logan, all the bad things happening—you're not a part of it, right?" she asks. "You're not doing anything illegal?"

"I don't want to lie to you, Veronica," he says, slowly, pulling each word from his mouth like sticky caramel. "I haven't been volunteering at soup kitchens in my spare time."

"The world is already burning," she says, looking away. "You don't have to fan the flames."

 

**Neptune, CA: July 2005.**

 

Things get worse. The Pacific Ocean turns a strange shade of brown (lab results are inconclusive). A software engineer loses a hand when his cell phone spontaneously combusts. Piles of trash accrue in alleyways and the spaces between cars; Neptune seems to generate its own garbage, now. Suicides are on the rise. The rows of 09er mansions stand shabby and forgotten after their owners decamp north. It's not so bad there, not yet. Streetlights burst in perfectly timed crescendos, hailstorms of broken glass playing Beethoven Sonatas. People get third degree burns from going barefoot at the beach. Strong summer winds blow unread newspapers from doorsteps and abandoned newsstands; they hang from the branches of dying palm trees, the faces of dead boys suspended from the sky. People at the edge of town report sightings of shadowy creatures with sharp pincers and wings. "These things, these birds, they knock on my windows at night. Rat-tat-tat. My nephew runs screaming every time he hears them coming," says Maria Alves, to the only local news team still on air. When Neptune's foremost ornithologist is asked to comment on the sightings, he politely declines.

 

**July 2, 2005.**

 

Veronica's phone rings. Caller ID: Anonymous.

"Hello?" The bile riles in her throat on reflex.

"Veronica Mars." The voice is loud and high pitched today. A hint of Cockney.

"Who is this? Please tell me."

"I've got another secret for you," the voice replies. "Lilly Kane in the dining room. With her teeth." _Click_. The line goes dead. Veronica collapses on the ground and cries.

 

Later that morning the front page of the _Neptune Register_ reads "Local Boy Mauled to Death by Unidentified Creature." His name is Seth Collins, he is 15 years old, and his heart is eaten out of his chest. His parents come home to find their son spread across the dining room table, his skin half-chewed off, the best tablecloth soaked through with blood.

 

"Veronica," says Wallace, "we've gotta talk." They're staked out in front of a different pay phone, in a different part of town. A thick purple fog is rolling through the streets, smelling of rank acid and turpentine. The windows of her LeBaron are rolled all the way up.

"What is it?" she asks. _Snap_. The payphone is blue and dented; KILL THE BIRDS has been etched into the metal with a knife.

"We're leaving Neptune," he says. An apology hangs between his words, unspoken. "My mom—she knows it's not much better anywhere else, but it can't possibly be worse. Can it?"

She looks out the window: looks at the waves of purple smoke suffocating houses and blanketing trees. She hears the faint buzz of a town folding in on itself.

"No, Wallace. It can't be worse," she says.

 

**October 1, 2003.**

 

A pair of hands reached around Veronica's head and covered her eyes.

"Guess who?" asked Lilly in her best Southern belle drawl.

"Is it… Rue McClanahan, star of stage and screen?"

"Nope."

"The reincarnated ghost of River Phoenix?"

"God I wish."

"Hmmm. Is it Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the candlestick?"

"Veronica Mars! Don't you remember me?" Lilly twirled her around like she was Fred and Veronica was Ginger. Veronica's flip-flops squeaked against the locker room floor. "Hi," Lilly smiled.

"You're in a good mood today," said Veronica, as she folded her cheerleader uniform.

"That I am."

"Hmm." Veronica raised a finger to her lips and pondered. "Either Celeste is jetting off to a Benedictine monastery to embark upon a year long vow of silence, or you've got a boy."

"So close," said Lilly, her eyes flashing.

"Lilly, you aren't doing anything too terrible, are you?"

"I could never do anything terrible, Veronica. I am amazing; therefore everything I do must also be amazing. That's basic logic."

"Well, whatever you're doing," said Veronica, "keep your head on straight and don't misplace any of your limbs."

"When I am faced with a moral dilemma, I will look to the sky and think _what would Veronica Mars do_?" Lilly stretched out her arms like a five year old in her first school pageant and did another twirl.

"And then you'll do the exact opposite thing," said Veronica.

"Probably. But what would I do without my moral compass?" asked Lilly, as she pinched Veronica's cheek.

**July 29, 2005.**

 

"We should run away," says Logan. They are sprawled on the hood of his car, their legs intertwined. Neptune stretches out before them. A streetlight flickers above, cutting their faces in half with each succeeding sputter of darkness.

"Where should we go?" she asks.

"Mexico, maybe. We could live by night and wait for the end of the world."

She leans into the crook of his arm, runs a finger down his chest. "Mmmm. Sounds dreamy."

"I keep expecting to wake up, you know? Even now, after everything. It can't be anything but a bad dream."

"A dream would be more logical," she says.

"You're like, a super sleuth. Can't you logic away the apocalypse?"

"I've been trying, believe me." She is quiet for a moment. "Logan?" She asks him with her eyes, he catches her meaning.

"Are you sure you're ready?"

"No time like the present." She giggles into his ear, breathy and half-hysterical. "Literally."

Then she brings her mouth to his and wraps her arms around him and feels the quickening of his heart against her chest as he slips his left hand up her skirt. She meets his gaze, dark and heavy and full of hope, until she can't meet it anymore. She looks to the sky and feels the dizziness of a million stars, hung for a million years over a million hopeful creatures. The streetlight bursts, and tiny shards of glass bounce off the windshield, off their skin. In that moment, she knows it is the end.

 

When she returns home, she finds Keith sitting at his desk, photographs of half eaten boys spread out before him like a tarot deck. He is poring over the images as though they are evidence instead of omens, and a laugh rips through Veronica's throat with all the grace of a homemade shiv.

"Dad, I'm pretty sure the world is ending. You don't have to work cases anymore."

"What would you have me do? Put on a Blue Oyster Cult record, pop open a lager and relax until we all disappear? None of that matters if there's no one left to save."

Veronica reaches for her father's hand and relishes the warmth of his touch. "We can't all be heroes," she says.

 

**Neptune, CA: August 2005.**

 

People start disappearing. They leave no bodies; they leave no notes. They disappear in alleyways and office buildings, in supermarkets and in broad daylight. Women turn around, arms outstretched, to find their husbands and children folded into the invisible limbs of Neptune. The city is eating its own.

It has sharp teeth.

 

**October 3, 2003.**

 

Lilly was dead, her limbs outstretched in the shape of a star. A bone-white sliver of skin poked through her shirt. The stench of chlorine and blood hung in the air; policemen loomed like khaki-colored Reapers. The sky shivered in pain. Veronica's tongue was made of ash, and a sharp scream came from somewhere deep within her. She didn't know sound could come from a place so far away.

She remembered it, later, as the exact moment her world really did end.

 

**August 5, 2005.**

 

Veronica's phone rings. Caller ID: Anonymous.

"Lilly Kane in the high school. Now." _Click_. The line goes dead.

 

 

She stands before her own memorial, flush against the evening sun like a week old flower that refuses to wilt. There is an open gash on her forehead, her skin is a queasy shade of blue, and she smells like formaldehyde and cherry lip-gloss. Veronica would know her anywhere.

"Lilly," she says.

Lilly unzips her mouth and smiles. It is the kind of smile that might have been the undoing of a girl who wasn't already undone. "Hello Veronica."

Lilly puts her hands on either side of Veronica's face and places a kiss on her forehead. Her lips are cold and her breath smells like dust. "I missed you most of all," she says.

"I missed you too, Lilly."

"You're probably wondering why I'm here," says Lilly. She picks at her fingernails, jagged and crusted with dirt.

Veronica drinks her in. The curve of her cheeks, the shape of her eyes, the petulant bow of her lower lip. "I have a few questions," she says, finally.  

"Shoot." Lilly makes a finger gun and fires at the sky. Somewhere in the distance, a winged creature lets out a shriek.

"Why are you here?"

"I dunno." She shrugs. "Nobody handed me a guide book when I clawed my way out of my coffin. A temporary reprieve for bad behavior?"

Veronica grabs Lilly's hands in hers; she feels the strange coolness of a body without a heartbeat. "When did it happen?" she asks.

"I'm not sure, really. One minute I was sitting silently in a box and falling apart, piece-by-piece. Incremental elimination of self, if you wanna get all philosophical about it. And then suddenly something shifted and I could open my eyes. Move my fingers. Taste the air and hear the colors. It was pretty trippy. Like that time Celeste upped my Adderall dosage. I saw a unicorn riding a man in a top hat, remember?" She catches sight of her head wound in a window and pauses to pick at it. "Fucking Aaron Echolls. Asshole had to go for the face. Anyway, I'm not really sure how I got out of my coffin. I remember splinters splitting open my hands and the sound of someone screaming. Now that I think about it, it was probably me screaming, wasn't it? _Weird_. To be honest it's all a bit of a blur. All I know is that I was suddenly standing in a cemetery wearing a godawful Celeste-approved dress with a godawful Celeste-approved cardigan. Once I got my brain sorted, I went to the nearest convenience store and stole some lipstick. _Priorities._ "

Veronica takes a deep breath, steels herself against the truth she already knows. "Lilly, have you been killing boys?"

Lilly looks nonplussed. "I've been born again with an insatiable need for boy flesh."

Veronica's face crumples, and she looks away. "You've always had an insatiable need for boy flesh," she says, finally.

"Now with a side order of blood." Lilly laughs. "I though you might appreciate it, to be honest. It's the perfect crime! No one ever suspects the dead girl."

Veronica laughs, long and low and sad.

"Next question?"

"Are you going to stop?" asks Veronica.

"Probably not," she says. "I'm not sure I could if I wanted to. I think it might be the reason I'm here. I'm _angry_ , Veronica Mars. I'm so angry."

"I can't let you kill anyone else, Lilly," says Veronica. "Even if it is the end of the world."

Veronica embraces Lilly in the middle of the deserted schoolyard, surrounded by the sounds of the apocalypse and the last vestiges of their shared girlhood. A shadowy figure swoops across the sky. A low hum buzzes like radio static.

"Don’t forget about me Veronica Mars," whispers Lilly, as she rests her head on Veronica's shoulder.

"I could never," says Veronica, as she draws a knife from her pocket.

Lilly smiles, and the shape of her mouth looks more dangerous than Veronica's dagger. She backs away slowly. Carefully.

All of a sudden, time and space seem to switch places. Lilly begins shrinking back towards Neptune High as though her feet are tied to a conveyer belt, and Veronica gets caught in her stream like a speck of dust caught in a tornado. She grasps at the grass, at the sky, she holds on for dear life but it's no use: she is dragged across muddy turf and jagged pavement, bumped against overturned lunch tables and broken flagpoles. She can see Lilly's face, beautiful and strangely beatific, still bright against the dying sun.

She is pulled through doors and across school hallways; she catches sight of yellow lockers and inspirational posters. _Be the change_ _that_ _you wish to see in the world._ She grabs hold of doorways and ceiling tiles, bits of garbage and stair railings. It is no use, and the pull is too strong. She is slammed into a wall and suddenly she feels the tether loosen. She feels the reel slacken. She is allowed the stand upright on her own two feet.

Lilly stands on the opposite side of the room, unblemished but for the gash on her forehead. She smiles bright and wide like a saint arching towards the divine. She walks towards Veronica: grabs her face once more with her cold dead hands. She kisses her once on each cheek.

"Why are you doing this?" gasps Veronica.

"Maximum chaos." She takes a lighter from her pocket. _Flick_. She throws the flame into the air.

"Run," she says.

Veronica can hear the sound of fire whipping up corridors and licking balustrades, chewing through staircases and dismantling hallways in one fevered crunch. She runs as fast as she can, dodging bits of crumbling ceiling and unhinged doors falling sideways, run, run, _run_ , she can feel her heart beating at the back of her throat, run, _run_ , soot and smoke tear through her lungs, _run_. Her muscles are failing, _run_ , the world is a camera and the shutter is closing, _run_ , everything is so dark. _Run_.

Her hands find a door, and she pushes through with all the strength she has left. She tumbles out and suddenly there is air. She breathes in. _In out, in out_.

She sits on the hood of her car and watches Neptune High burn. The flames shoot up like fireworks, drawing golden and yellow and red patterns across the sky.

"Look on my corpse, ye Mighty, and despair," she says, to no one.

She glances at her watch. It's stopped.

Then she gets in her car and goes home.

 

Veronica finds the spy pen shoved in her jacket pocket. It still carries her handwritten message, written in girlish cursive.

_Come back_.

 

**Sometime later.**

 

Lilly sits on the beach, unmoving and almost invisible. She watches a band of sun-kissed children frolic in the waves, clean and pure and untouched.

She wonders what to do without her Veronica, without her moral compass.

_Ah well_ , she thinks. _Compasses don't always point north_.


End file.
